


How Many Miles

by sparxwrites



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Road Trips, Vague Mentions of Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 18:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1560629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Get on in. Where’re you going?”</p>
<p>There’s no answer to that. He’s going away, not towards; going to somewhere, anywhere that’s not here.</p>
<p>(In which Sam runs away, and finds a road trip quite by accident.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Many Miles

**Author's Note:**

> (If you’re going to read this, do me a favour and listen to [Sloppy Seconds by Watsky](https://www.youtuberepeat.com/watch?v=7gNJ5cQGZJQ) on repeat while you do? Because I wrote this to it, and in a weird way for it, and really the two just go together.)

Sam shoulders his bag higher, sticks out his thumb, tries to look like he’s not a sixteen-year-old runaway looking to get as far away as he can as fast as he can. His height helps, the right side of six foot and still growing, muscles building around his shoulders and chest and legs from the constant training whenever he’s not in school or sat in the backseat of the Impala leaving yet another town behind forever.

His hair’s long and in his eyes because he’s not had a haircut in months rather than through any rebellion, and he hopes it’s enough to distract from the slight softness around his jaw and cheeks that betrays his youth, the teenage acne still fading across his nose and cheeks and forehead.

Someone stops, eventually, five minutes later by the time on the too-big watch around his wrist – he’s still filling out, things too wide on the shoulders but too short on the arm all the time. They roll the window down, and Sam relaxes a little at the sight of a man that can’t be much more than twenty, just a few years older than him.

“Looking for a lift?” He’s wearing a leather jacket that looks like it’s seen better days, dirty-blonde hair a mess and a smattering of cuts across his knuckles, but his eyes are blue and clear and kind, in an exhausted kind of way, too old for his body.

Sam nods, and the guy jerks his head towards the door. “Get on in. Where’re you going?”

There’s no answer to that. He’s going  _away_ , not towards; going to somewhere,  _anywhere_  that’s not here.

“I’ll tell you when I get there,” he says, instead, hoping he sounds adult and mysterious instead of lost and angry and hopelessly out of his depth, adventure in his chest and guilt in his throat.

It doesn’t work, if the slow half-curl of the man’s lips is anything to go by. “Right,” he says, amusement in his voice, but none of the patronising tone he’s so used to from Dean. “Well, I’m Lucifer. You?”

“Sam,” says Sam, doesn’t comment on the odd name, only thinks that he should have given a fake one after he’s said it.

“Well, Sam,” says Lucifer, hand dropping from the steering wheel to the gearstick, the knuckles that aren’t crimson and black with scabs gleaming white with scars in the summer sunshine, “nice to meet you.”

It’s polite, almost unnervingly so from a guy dressed like he’s just walked out the wrong end of a bar brawl.

Sam says nothing, and silence descends.

-

“What’re you running from?” asks Lucifer, maybe half an hour later, and Sam jumps, guiltily, shifting in the seat.  
“How did you know?”  
Lucifer shrugs one *shoulder, side of the mouth twitching in something that might be a grin or might be pain.”Takes one to know one.”

Sam doesn’t push further, presses his forehead against the cool of the window and watches his breath mist on the glass. “My dad,” he says, quietly. “He’ll find me eventually, probably, but- I need to get away.”  
There’s quiet for a moment, and then Lucifer nods slowly. “Dads are assholes.”

His knuckles are white around the steering wheel, scars whiter still.

Suddenly, abruptly, Sam wonders whether the scars stop at his knuckles. Wonders whether they were really gotten in a bar brawl, like he’d assumed. Wonders what brick wall does to knuckles, wonders what fathers bad enough to make the life drain out of someone’s voice and face do to children.

He doesn’t reach over and put a hand over Lucifer’s, doesn’t try to press pink and warmth back into skin leached of life – but it’s a close thing.

“Where’re you going to?” asks Lucifer, for the second time, and this time there’s a request for the truth in his voice that wasn’t there before. It’s not a demand, no pressure, not a threat. Just a request.

“I don’t know,” says Sam, and the admission makes something in his chest feel light and free. The road spreads out before them, coloured warm in the light of a sun dipping towards the horizon, bordered by flat grass for miles and miles and miles. “Like I said. I needed to get away. I- I didn’t really think about where.”

“So you’re going  _somewhere_.” Lucifer raises an eyebrow, takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at Sam. “That’s okay. I’m going somewhere too.” And, for the first time, he smiles – with his eyes as well as his mouth, light rising in them, and Sam’s breath catches in his chest for a second without him really knowing why.

In the golden light streaming through the window, Lucifer’s hair looks like a broken halo atop his head. An angel in a beat-up leather jacket, grazed knuckles and all.

“Like I said,” says Sam, an answering smile tugging at the corners of his lips as Lucifer turns his eyes back to the road, to the world spread out ahead of them. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

**Author's Note:**

> _I don’t care where you’ve been,_  
>  How many miles,  
> I still love you. 


End file.
